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7 Highly Rated Stocks on Sale

These stocks have experienced a big price cut in the past month.

I am always looking for a good deal, whether that means buying an extra box of Golden Grahams when they're on sale or pouncing on undervalued stocks. The idea that anybody would sell a stock for less than it's worth may seem silly, but legendary value investor Ben Graham (no relation to the cereal) tells us, by way of allegory, how we can look out for these situations.

In The Intelligent Investor, Graham introduces readers to a wacky chap named Mr. Market. Mr. Market's game is to pay you house calls on a daily basis to offer to sell you interests in businesses he owns or to buy from you interests in businesses you own. Sometimes Mr. Market will show up at your door very excited and offer you premium prices for your holdings, while at other times he'll be inconsolably depressed about the future and will offer to sell you what he has for as low as pennies on the dollar.

So, to find some of the stocks that Mr. Market is depressed about, I've turned once again to The Motley Fool's CAPS investor community. Each of the companies below had been given a five-star rating (the highest) by our community just 30 days ago:

As the table shows, these stocks are all still very well-regarded by the CAPS community despite their underperformance over the past month. While these are not formal recommendations, they could be a great place to kick off some further research. I'll even get you started with some thoughts on Petrobras.

Why so blue?We don't have to do much in the way of complicated actuarial math to figure this one out. Oil is down by, oh, let's just say half, since its peak in July. At the same time, financial turmoil has rippled throughout the globe, gumming up financial markets and pointing us toward a global recession.

Time to own a foreign oil company? It appears many investors think not. The numbers above look bad enough, but if we look at Petrobras' fall from its peak stock price of nearly $78 per share, we're talking about a haircut of around 60% -- and that's a lot of hair.

What the bulls sayWhen I think Petrobras, one of the first names that comes to my mind is CGM Focus Fund manager Ken Heebner. Why Ken? First, because he runs a mighty fine fund that -- though it's down significantly this year -- had put a pounding on the S&P index over the past few years. More importantly, though, because he has been a big fan of Petrobras and it has been one of his largest holdings.

In an interview in mid-September with CNBC, Heebner mentioned that he's been drastically lightening up on his commodities exposure. But (and that's a big but), he noted that he's been hanging on to Petrobras. I wouldn't use that as something to bet the house on -- Heebner is known for high turnover and moving on a dime -- but it suggests that he sees additional value in the company above many other commodity-tied companies.

On CAPS, the tenor on Petrobras has been even more positive. Despite the weakness in oil and the stock's recent sell-off, there are still more than 3,000 CAPS members who are bullish on it, versus just 60 who think it will underperform the market. One of CAPS' All-Star members, dbhealy, just recently put his thumbs up on Petrobras, writing:

i'm not betting against oil in the long run. we probably haven't seen the bottom yet, but i'm not trying to time the market here - just looking for well-diversified, large caps that have tangible asset valuation on their books.

So do you think the recent drop has created a good buying opportunity? Or will Petrobras continue to head down with oil? Let the community know what you think -- head over to CAPS and share your thoughts with the other 115,000-plus members. Even if you'd prefer to pass on Petrobras, you can check out a couple of the other stocks listed above or any of the 5,400 stocks that are rated on CAPS.

In the coming weeks, Fool Co-Founder David Gardner and his Motley Fool Pro team will invest $1 million in a portfolio designed to help you make money in any market. The service, which just launched, will rely heavily on proprietary CAPS "community intelligence" data to establish long and short positions in a broad range of securities, including common stocks, publicly traded put and call options, and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). To learn more about Motley Fool Pro and to receive a private invitation to join, simply enter your email address in the box below.

Fool contributor Matt Koppenheffer does not own shares of any of the companies mentioned. You can check out what Matt likes in CAPS by visiting hisCAPS portfolio. The Fool's disclosure policy knows how to drop a stock like it's hot, but only when the company is truly cold.